Registration for YAPC::NA (Yet Another Perl Conference, North America) 2005 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada is now open.

The conference registration price is USD$85. This price includes admission to all aspects of the conference, respectable amounts of catering, several activities and a few conference goodies.

The YAPC North America 2005 conference features...

* Fantastic speakers

+ most are the core creators of the technology on which they present

+ many are professional IT authors, trainers and conference speakers

* An excellent learning opportunity

* A chance to meet Perl professionals from all over North America and the world

+ YAPC attendees tend to be very involved in Perl and so are another great way to learn more about what the language has to offer beyond just what the speakers have to say

* Extra-curricular / after hours activities

* A great location in downtown Toronto

All this, and the price is more than an order of magnitude cheaper than what commercial conferences can offer. This is because YAPC is a 100% volunteer effort, both from its organizers and its speakers. Quality is *not* sacrificed to achieve this stunning level of affordability.

YAPC provides the best value-for-dollar in IT conferences. And it's a ton of fun, too.

The dates of the conference are Monday - Wednesday 27-29 June 2005. The location is 89 Chestnut Street in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Note that a different date block was previously announced; we moved the conference date to accommodate venue availability.)

We have room for about 400 attendees and we hope to sell out well in advance of the late June conference date. However, the critical matter is that of hotels.

The YAPC::NA 2005 organizers have made group arrangements with several facilities around the city to provide _excellent_ quality accommodations in _very_ convenient locations at _terrific_ prices for the _full_ capacity of conference attendees (around 400 people).

(Finding, booking and paying accommodations is the responsibility of the attendees, but we will provide you with a list of the hotels and university dorms to try first based on our group arrangement with them when you register for the conference. Also, see the web site at http://yapc.org/America/accommodations-2005.shtml. More details will be up shortly. The dorm option will be approx. C$55/night, the hotel options will be more like C$90/night, and for slightly different prices there will be options for putting more than 1 person in a room. Exact details and how to book will be emailed directly to people who have registered for the conference as soon as they become available.)

*The catch is -- book now!!* The group reservations will expire in early May, at which point in time the group rates will mostly still apply, but the rooms will be given out on an "availability basis". Which means that someone else outside of the YAPC group can book the rooms as well.

Make no mistake -- the rooms *will* be sold. Toronto is a very active conference city in the summer and there will be _no_ guarantee of vacancies either at the facilities we made arrangements with or anywhere else in the city if you leave it to within 6 weeks of the conference date. So, if you want to save yourself the likely-fruitless headache of scrambling around looking for accommodations at the last minute,

My bad. I should have been more careful. Oh well, at least I can admit when I am wrong :)

I just hope nobody colors the organizers with the same brush, because I know they've put in a ton of effort to pull this thing off. They're all just volunteers trying to put together a top notch Perl conference that any joe off the street can afford to attend.